November Chitter Chatter

[Ryrin]

                                                    

[LilyElizabeth]

I'm sad that Halloween is over. 

[LadyWordsmith]

We had a good Halloween, even if we didn't hand out candy. Our local SCA group has a 5th Tuesday revel any month that has a 5th Tuesday, so we had a Samhain revel! A couple of the gentlemen in the group spent all day smoking all sorts of meats, so we had a tasty spread, and a bonfire, and the local cat colony in the yard supplied us with bright eye critters (including an adorable black kitten) under a bright moon. 

Then we came home, and my husband, son, and I watched The Great Pumpkin and ate some of the kitkats that come in three flavors.  

[Ryrin]

I'm sad that Halloween is over. 

 

What is your favorite part of Halloween? Is there something you look forward to each year?

 

We had a good Halloween, even if we didn't hand out candy. Our local SCA group has a 5th Tuesday revel any month that has a 5th Tuesday, so we had a Samhain revel! A couple of the gentlemen in the group spent all day smoking all sorts of meats, so we had a tasty spread, and a bonfire, and the local cat colony in the yard supplied us with bright eye critters (including an adorable black kitten) under a bright moon. 

 

Then we came home, and my husband, son, and I watched The Great Pumpkin and ate some of the kitkats that come in three flavors.

 

Fun!!!!  I would love something like this. Maybe I will suggest it.

 

I had a Dr's appointment about 45 minutes away. My friend came with, and we went to lunch and to Barnes and Nobles after the appointment. I love their bargain books. I bought two very thick books. One has ghost stories and the other swashbuckling adventure stories. 

 

I'm trying to get a group for board game nights. I bought a card game called "Guilliotine."  The game is set during the French Revolution. The goal is to collect the heads of Nobles, accumulating points. My friend bought "Antidote - a game of deduction, deception and morality. A toxin is running through your veins. Can you find the antidote, before it's too late?" My friend played a game that came out in the late 70's. It's about politicians and called "Lie, Cheat, and Steal." I was able to get a good vintage game from Ebay. They don't make it anymore. I really want to get Catan and some of it's various editions.

[LadyWordsmith]

Oooh! Those sound like a lot of fun. I've heard of Guillotine, but have never had a chance to play. I enjoy Catan, too, though for some reason we do not actually own a copy. 

 

 

 

We had a good Halloween, even if we didn't hand out candy. Our local SCA group has a 5th Tuesday revel any month that has a 5th Tuesday, so we had a Samhain revel! A couple of the gentlemen in the group spent all day smoking all sorts of meats, so we had a tasty spread, and a bonfire, and the local cat colony in the yard supplied us with bright eye critters (including an adorable black kitten) under a bright moon. 

Then we came home, and my husband, son, and I watched The Great Pumpkin and ate some of the kitkats that come in three flavors.

 

Fun!!!!  I would love something like this. Maybe I will suggest it.

 

I had a Dr's appointment about 45 minutes away. My friend came with, and we went to lunch and to Barnes and Nobles after the appointment. I love their bargain books. I bought two very thick books. One has ghost stories and the other swashbuckling adventure stories. 

 

I'm trying to get a group for board game nights. I bought a card game called "Guilliotine."  The game is set during the French Revolution. The goal is to collect the heads of Nobles, accumulating points. My friend bought "Antidote - a game of deduction, deception and morality. A toxin is running through your veins. Can you find the antidote, before it's too late?" My friend played a game that came out in the late 70's. It's about politicians and called "Lie, Cheat, and Steal." I was able to get a good vintage game from Ebay. They don't make it anymore. I really want to get Catan and some of it's various editions.

[LilyElizabeth]

I don't think there is anything I don't like about Halloween, although I didn't sit around and give out candy this year. I bought a bunch of Halloween socks and wore them to work all month. I dress up every chance I get. I love all the decorations and stuff. I don't really have a favorite thing. 

[Ryrin]

I once sent Halloween socks to a DM'er who doesn't live in the states.

 

My son, when he was younger, loved Halloween at my job. The kids could come in the office trick or treating in costume. The employees dress up, have a costume contest, a lunch, and a raffle.

[JamesBrown]

I'm trying to imagine a "cat colony"...

[LadyWordsmith]

It's pretty much like a lion pride with more animals. Sometimes domestic cats will form large groups in areas where living is good (barn cats sometimes do this, for example). Females will even communally nurse each other's kittens (spreads the work around). There are generally more males than in a lion pride. You'll have multiple generations of cats all living together.

Our friends have a small colony of 'strays' that live out on their property (the cats moved in of their own accord) on the edge of town. He's severely allergic to cats (but likes them okay), so he and his wife have at various times had as many as possible caught and spayed/neutered using the local feral catch-and-release clinic (at which point they do get tested for any diseases). They are a healthy group of cats, who own themselves. The cats are reasonably friendly in this particular colony if you don't try to pick them up, and often come right up to the house, but they feed themselves by eating the mice on the property. 
 

I'm trying to imagine a "cat colony"...

[Ryrin]

My Vet manages a cat colony at a local park. They are trapped and spayed/neutered. 

 

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/news/local/2014/12/31/year-review-feral-cats-get-humane-help/21092835/

 

During 2014, a new mantra for feral cats took hold in Visalia — trap, neuter and return.

It makes more sense to sterilize untamed and abandoned cats and return them to where they were found than to euthanize them because other stray cats will replace them and the problem will continue, say members of the Visalia Feral Cat Coalition. Where there's food — in trash cans and on the ground at parks, mobile home parks and next to restaurants — there will be cats, said Nan Kuswa, a Visalia veterinarian. The coalition was formed to address the feral cat problem in Visalia by trapping, neutering and returning cats to where they are found. The theory behind the work is simple: Because cats are territorial animals, including neutered cats, by returning them, they will keep other cats out. "The big boys are good because they'll keep cats out of the neighborhood," she said. And because the cats have been fixed, they cannot reproduce.

 

 

My Vet is sort of in the middle, wearing glasses and a white shirt, and holding a folder.

[LadyWordsmith]

That's fabulous! Thank you for linking the article too! I'm always happy to hear there are other vets besides the ones here doing trap-fix-release programs and people are helping the cats.

I volunteer at a kitten neonatal facility here, feeding bottle-babies (we get over 500 kittens a YEAR that people find and bring in that don't have their mamas! from all over the state), and it's just insane! Some folks just opened a new facility that's doing kittens and 'puppies' down in Oklahoma City, which will be the second neonatal facility in the entire state.  

All my furkids are fixed (and the cats are all indoor). Both of our newer babies at home are from our rescue facility. 

 

My Vet manages a cat colony at a local park. They are trapped and spayed/neutered. 

 

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/news/local/2014/12/31/year-review-feral-cats-get-humane-help/21092835/

 

During 2014, a new mantra for feral cats took hold in Visalia — trap, neuter and return.

It makes more sense to sterilize untamed and abandoned cats and return them to where they were found than to euthanize them because other stray cats will replace them and the problem will continue, say members of the Visalia Feral Cat Coalition. Where there's food — in trash cans and on the ground at parks, mobile home parks and next to restaurants — there will be cats, said Nan Kuswa, a Visalia veterinarian. The coalition was formed to address the feral cat problem in Visalia by trapping, neutering and returning cats to where they are found. The theory behind the work is simple: Because cats are territorial animals, including neutered cats, by returning them, they will keep other cats out. "The big boys are good because they'll keep cats out of the neighborhood," she said. And because the cats have been fixed, they cannot reproduce.

 

 

My Vet is sort of in the middle, wearing glasses and a white shirt, and holding a folder.

[Ryrin]

That's awesome!!! You must have a lot of patience for such tiny kittens. It warms my heart when people are doing things, not only to help animals, but to make the world a better place.

[LadyWordsmith]

It's not hard to be patient with the babies. They're adorable. Though oh my do you get scratched! They scrabbled at your hands while they try to grab the bottle, and they're little balls of needles! Then there's the stimulating them to 'go' because the mamas do that for the first several weeks, so you spend a lot of time washing up and wiping babies. Though so many of them come in sick because of their circumstances. I've never worked anywhere that had stricter cleanliness, quarantine, and decontamination policies!

Both of my youngest kitties are adopted from there. My two-and-a-half year old was brought in at one day old, because a Raccoon had tried to eat the litter, and the Mama died fighting off the raccoon. So she is missing four toes off her front paw, and half her tail from being bitten (they were turning black and falling off and had to be amputated). Her brother had shaken-kitten neurological issues from being tossed around and when we would feed him, he would randomly spazz and twitch. Thankfully he was little enough that he was able to compensate and develop and move past the worst of it (he was adopted by another of our volunteers.) You can't tell my girl she's missing anything though, she doesn't know. Though she often forgets she doesn't have most of her claws on her left foot, and she is always trying to 'stop' and grab with it, even now. But she is the most gloriously pretty calico. 

Our newest (not quite a year) is a big sleek Russian-blue colored boy with the deepest orange eyes! He's a snuggly darling who loves to drape all over things. I do not know his full backstory, but he was a favorite among the shelter volunteers as well. I do love that we get first-dibs on adoptions.  

[Ryrin]

I love hearing stories like that. What a brave mother.

[LadyWordsmith]

She was a very brave mama! We have so many stories like that, about where our kittens come from. Here are our rescue babies that we brought home. The calico is mama's not-a-raccoon-snack. The blue boy we got last March and he loves to sprawl everywhere (and is my son's cat). 

 

[Ryrin]

They are so cute!!!

[LadyWordsmith]

Thanks! I've also found that almost every baby we bottle-feed ends up super social with other cats and with humans because they have different people tending them so often. We do 4-hour shifts 24/7, and most people only do 1-2 shifts a week, so they get handled and loved by a lot of volunteers, and then they live in rooms full of other kittens. :smile; The funny thing though, is introducing them to dogs. Both of mine freaked out with a very "OH MY GOSH WHAT IS THAT ANIMAL" reaction. Of course, our dogs are very chill with cats and friendly, so they've gotten over their fear of dogs and are convinced they rule the dogs instead.